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Saturday, November 13, 2010

Green Lynx Egg Sac Notes

















The lynx spider (Peucetia viridans) with the season's 1st egg sac, seen here, has moved her sac from place to place.  Initially she was located in the African basil, then she moved to a flower spike of Salvia 'Indigo Spires'.






Recently she's been sunning on a leaf of Salvia 'Waverly' with the pale pink flowers and name I can never remember except by using the reference 'Wire-ly' which describes this plant's habit as it doesn't quite get enough sun in my yard and stretches through the fence for support.  Anyway, these lynx spider moms do move the egg sac around for whatever reasons: to get out of the rain, to sun themselves and/or the eggs, to get to a better hunting spot, maybe to get away from potential egg predators; I dunno, do spiders get bored?

This morning this spider (Egg sac #1) was having an earwig meal while standing guard over her egg sac in the sun.

I noticed another green lynx egg sac recently because it's bright yellow color caught my eye.  This female had recently set up in the top of a large old lavender bush on the south side of the house and I assume the egg sac was quite freshly created at the time I first saw it.  I wondered about the egg sac color, since every other one I've seen is whitish or tan/straw colored.  I'm thinking it's possible that pollen from the acacia iteaphylla (about 10 feet away) that is in full bloom has gotten incorporated into the egg sac silk and caused the yellow color.  Hanging in the lavender is a bit of acacia flower fluff and you can see the similarity in color.   









Here is a cluster of A. iteaphylla blossoms for your viewing pleasure.






After a couple days, Yellow sac is still in approximately although not exactly the same spot on the lavender, and her egg sac has faded to olive greenish.

1 comment:

Christine said...

I love the idea of nomadic spiders, carting their children around on tour throughout the garden.